To Lose Control, If Only For A Night
by ALovelyLacuna
Summary: The Avengers and Pepper go to a bar after Agent Coulson's funeral, to just lose control and push back the pain, if only for a night.


**A/N Just a drabble, I got the thought while listening to Kill All Your Friends by My Chemical Romance, which I promise, is not as morbid as you think, but rather insightful.**

"I know what we need, a few good drinks!" Stark exclaimed.

"How can you think of drinks after that?" Steve questioned, seeming angered. The that he was talking of was a funeral. Phil Coulson's funeral specifically.

He shrugged. "You were all thinking it. Besides, it's better we drink together than alone into the night, yeah? Either way, we're going, it's on me."

"Benefits of being friends with a billionaire." Natasha mumbled.

Tony smirked. "Oh, I'm touched you count me as a friend, deadly assassin."

"Let's go, before Nat or Pepper kills Tony." Hawkeye urged.

Pepper, the ever efficient one, had already called a car for them, knowing full well Tony was going to get what he wanted in the end.

"So, everybody's in?" The suites Iron man asked, hopping into the awaiting car.

Thor shrugged. "As long as I don't have to fly anyone home."

"Can you even get drunk?" Widow asked.

Thor shook his head, "Not on mortal drinks."

"So we're getting drunk?" Tony perked up even more, this evening was going well for having been at a dead man's side just minutes before.

Captain America shook his head, "Drowning our sorrows isn't necessary."

"It's an option." Clint shrugged.

"So I'm not getting out of this?" Steve asked.

Tony grinned. "Not tonight, Old Glory."

"As long as there isn't a repeat performance of last time." Pepper ordered.

"That was one time." Tony said indignantly.

"As I recall, it's happened more than once, you've gotten kicked out of bars for mooning at least seven bartenders." Pepper smirked, happy she was in control.

He simply pouted.

"You've been awfully quiet, Banner." Thor's voice filled the small space.

The scientist shrugged. "I'm not a jubilant mourner."

"Who said you needed to mourn? You think Agent Coulson would want that?" Tony had rejoined the conversation.

"I don't think that man wanted much of anything in the way of emotions." Natasha chuckled.

Pepper's eyes started to water. "Let's not. Can we please just get into the bar and get smashed."

Everyone's eyebrows raised, but maybe, just this once they could lose control.

The red-eyed group stepped into the bar, a roaring noise erupting as soon as they opened the door. The heat drifted around them, entwined with the scent of alcohol and sweat. Normally, their noses would wrinkle, or maybe Steve would look around, slightly upset by the vulgarities being tossed around, but it was not a normal night. It was a night to forget mourning for the moment, dull the ache in their heads, then increase it with the intake of alcohol, the pulsing physical pain blocking out the emotional one. It was a night of lost control.

"One round of boilers!" Stark cried to the bartender, gesturing to the party around him.

The mugs brimming with the inebriating substance were placed before them.

Banner's eyes widened slightly. "We can drink this without dying?"

"I can." Tony shrugged. "Just go."

"Contest?" Thor questioned, his eyes gleaming.

Tony smirked. "You're on, big guy. Anyone else?"

"Why not?" Natasha smirked, grabbing her mug, pouring the shot of who-knows-what into it.

"Oh, get ready to lose." Thor boomed.

"Go!" Pepper cried.

Their throats spasmed with the frequency of the drinks spilling into their mouths. Dribbles and steams poured onto the trio's shirts.

"Done!" The norse god cried, slamming down his mug.

Natasha finished a small time afterward. "Wow, you're good, I haven't been beat in a while."

Finally, Tony was done. "I can't believe I just lost to Natasha. I mean, no offense, Thor's basically a god, but do they like put this into your bottles in Russia?"

"It wouldn't surprise me." Natasha smiled. "I usually win at stakeouts with Clint."

"I won that one time in Nepal, remember that." Clint smirked.

She shook her head, "You know I hate rum, it's so sweet."

"Yeah, but you can down a bottle of vodka and still not go into toxic shock." Clint replied.

"I built up an immunity to alcohol, along with other poisons." Natasha explained.

Tony smirked. "Of course you have, now, it seems our drinks are gone. How about a double round of shots?"

"Blackberry vodka is good, if anyone was wondering." Clint suggested.

"Blackberry vodka it is, my dear sharpshooter." Tony yelled, crying for another round of just that.

Pepper groaned. "It's only been fifteen minutes and I already feel drunk."

"You probably are." Natasha smirked, not close to inebriated yet.

Banner nodded. "I'm with Pepper, how long are we going to be here?"

"Until we get kicked out, of course!" Tony cried. "Tomorrow is Sunday, they gotta' kick us out at twelve otherwise the devil will get us or something like that. I forget."

The gawky bartender poured more rounds of alcohol for the peculiar group, trying to figure out where he recognized them from. Then it hit him, the Avengers! The ones on the news, the ones who saved the city, his city! He quietly snapped a photo and wondered silently whether he should ask for Captain America to sign his trading cards.

"I can't do this any more, can I fold?" Bruce chuckled.

Tony groaned. "C'mon Banner, even Pepper is still going!"

"Actually, I'm out, I need to be awake, who knows what trouble you'll manage to get into on the way home." Pepper sighed, a grin gracing her features, a glassy sheen covering her eyes.

"You don't trust me?" Tony murmured into her ear.

"If you guys start to have sex here I'm leaving." Steve announced, the alcohol leaving him less ashamed of such things.

Tony rolled his eyes. "That's for later compadre."

"I would rather not hear about this." Natasha whined. "I want more vodka, preferably raspberry."

"What, like we don't put up with Clint's talk of your shenanigans?" Banner smirked, finally one upping the spider.

She didn't even have the shame to look scandalized. "You wish you were him. Now give me alcohol."

"Another round for the lady!" Steve cried.

"And me!" Thor cried, on his fifth mug of some vodka and beer concoction, with a bit of rum.

Banner raised an eyebrow. "I don't know how you guys do it."

"Practice." Tony smirked, grabbing a beer for himself.

By this time their escapades had taken them to twelve fifty in the morning, and their bill had probably gone up to the price of a car, and the bartenders and owner had been kicking people out for some time.

"Let's go." Pepper said to all of them. It was more of a command than a suggestion.

All except Thor were smashed by this time, but somehow the small boy who'd been serving their drinks all night plucked up the courage to approach the Captain.

"Uh-um excuse me, sir!" The boy cried just before the Captain got in the car. "If it's not too much trouble, c-could you sign these for me? I don't have the whole lot of them, but they're good ones." He handed him his Captain America cards.

For reasons unknown to the young adult, a tear formed in the soldier's eye. "Sure." He began to loop his signature in the familiar sharpie pen he had become so accustomed to.

"Thank you so much." The boy stared down at the cards in his hand in awe, as if the meaning of life itself had somehow fallen down from the heavens to him.

Steve reached into his back pocket. "Here, take these too." He had given him a whole set of signed trading cards, all vintage and in perfect condition except for slight foxing around the edges.

"W-why would you give these t-to me?" The boy stuttered out.

"He would have wanted you to have them." And with that, an inebriated Captain America slid into Tony Stark's car.

The boy didn't know who 'he' was, and it mattered, but not in that moment. He stood there for quite some time, before sprinting home and calling his mother, the cool night enveloping him.

That night they crashed, losing control for what might be the last time, for now they had a world to hold together and protect. They would not mourn for now, that had been pushed off, dulled, saved for the morning, no one would deal with that pain in the moment, simply the alcohol, for the physical pain was much easier to deal with than the emotional.

~'Cause we all want a party when the funeral ends~

**A/N I hope you liked it, review if you'd please, and if you want me to write something or see what I do with a prompt, please message me or review! Thank you and have a lovely life!**


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